Oracle Blog

US Software, Systems Engineer

Sun Ray, Green Screen and VNC

I have a client that is exploring thin client technologies. They want to update their desktop technology. But they do not have the resources to rewrite their existing client. An existing Green Screen client that runs perfectly in a terminal window. Except the terminal clients on RHEL block certain function keys. Certain keys are intercepted by the terminal application for menu operations and are not passed to the green screen client.

I had an light bulb idea. Why not use VNC to connect to the client to see how well that would work. It works like a charm. All the function keys get sent through. One exception was the F8 key. Luckily VNC will let you remap that key to some other combination.

So now we have a solution that protects the customers investment while letting them move to current display technology.